the end of protestA new playbook for revolution

The End of Protest: A New Playbook for Revolution by Micah White, Occupy Wall Street co-creator

Is protest broken? Micah White, co-creator of Occupy Wall Street, thinks so. Recent years have witnessed the largest protests in human history. Yet these mass mobilizations no longer change society. Now activism is at a crossroads: innovation or irrelevance.

Is protest broken? Micah White, co-creator of Occupy Wall Street, thinks so. Recent years have witnessed the largest protests in human history. Yet these mass mobilizations no longer change society. Now activism is at a crossroads: innovation or irrelevance.

In The End of Protest White declares the end of protest as we know it and heralds the future of activism. Drawing on his unique experience with Occupy Wall Street, a contagious protest that spread to eighty-two countries, White articulates a unified theory of revolution and eight principles of tactical innovation that are destined to catalyze the next generation of social movements. Sweeping from contemporary uprisings to spiritual and pre-modern revolutions, The End of Protest is a far-reaching inquiry into the miraculous power of collective epiphanies.

Despite global challenges—catastrophic climate change, economic collapse and the decline of democracy—White finds reason for optimism: the end of protest inaugurates a new era of social change. He argues that Occupy Wall Street was a constructive failure that exposed the limits of protest at the same time as it revealed a practical way forward. On the horizon are increasingly sophisticated movements that will emerge in a bid to dominate elections, govern cities and reorient the way we live.

In this provocative playbook, White offers three bold revolutionary scenarios for harnessing the creativity of people from across the political spectrum.

White also shows:

How social movements are created and how they spread

How materialism limits contemporary activism

Why we must re-conceive protest in timescales of centuries, not days

Ultimately, the end of protest is the beginning of the spiritual revolution within ourselves, the political revolution in our communities and the social revolution on Earth.

Rigorous, original and compelling, The End of Protest is an exhilarating vision of an all-encompassing revolution of revolution.

MICAH WHITE, PhD is the award-winning activist who co-created Occupy Wall Street, a global social movement, while an editor of Adbusters magazine. Widely recognized as a pioneer of social movement creation, White has been profiled by The New Yorker, and Esquire has named him one of the most influential young thinkers alive today. Learn more about him at micahmwhite.com

Advance Praise for THE END OF PROTEST

Fearlessly lucid, radically open-minded, Micah White puts protest back where it belongs—among the greatest forces ever to shape history. Then he exposes a protest culture just as jaded as the structures it seeks to overthrow, and as desperately in need of ‘ruthless innovation.’ Many books tell us why we should protest; this book tells us how.

— J.B. MacKinnon, author of The Once and Future World

Micah White issues an impassioned clarion call for activists to reinvent protest—a format that that has been so utterly devitalized, it has lost its bite and power to impel change. White makes his case by drawing on decades of personal experience and the historical record, and what springs forth from these pages is an eminently readable playbook packed with wisdom and practical advice for resuscitating the power of dissent in the twenty-first century.

— Gabriella Coleman, author of Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy

A new paradigm for resistance. The End of Protest will be sure to initiate a heated and necessary debate about how to confront oppression, and what constitutes victory. 

— Douglas Rushkoff

Within the context of his experience with the Occupy movement, Micah White bravely challenges the current protest-rut in which many social justice activists find themselves. His critique of modern social movements challenges activists to progress to the next level, while leaving us hopeful that the revolution for a better world is already upon us.

President Kennedy said, ‘Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.’ One of the most urgent existential questions of our time is how to respond to that supposition. In The End of Protest, Micah White guides the conversation by combining an expansive grasp of history and political philosophy, with a thrilling sense of future possibility.

— Marianne Williamson, author of A Return to Love

Micah White gives us a birds eye view of the ever shifting battle field of dynamic social change. New wars require new arts to be successful.

— Lupe Fiasco, rapper and hip-hop artist

The End of Protest is an engrossing historical document, call to arms, guide, and self-critical look at the Occupy movement from one of its co-founders. It traces the history of protest in the North and offers a new vision, tactics, and strategy for a peaceful revolution through a horizontal, mundialist movement. An inspiring must-read for any activist.

— Carmen Aguirre, author of Something Fierce

Micah White is a strategist, a new breed of revolutionary. He knows that resistance isn’t so much about what you do as who you are: it cuts right inside you, into your very Being, into your belief systems, into your democratic hopes, into your anti-corporate desires, into your whole mental environment. This is Rules for Radicals for the World Party—the one yet to be.

— Andy Merrifield, author of The Wisdom of Donkeys and Magical Marxism

Micah White argues convincingly that established modes of protest are outdated and sketches the outlines for how activists can and must innovate. His book is a love letter to activists of the future.

— Michael Hardt, co-author of the Empire trilogy (Empire, Multitude, Commonwealth) as well as Declaration

Micah White offers us a deeply honest, courageous and ultimately optimistic view of how people can make a far better world — and why we’re not there yet. The book is so packed with insights and ideas that you’re bound to agree with some and question others. But you will be challenged and you will get smarter. This book is much needed fuel for a people’s compassionate revolution.

— Jonah Sachs, author of Winning the Story Wars

Micah is a systems genius and the moral voice of a thinking generation. His points are simple, true and astounding.

— Roseanne Barr, comedian

The End of Protest is an informative and inspiring book for activists of any and every stripe. White’s emphasis on ‘mental environmentalism’, as he puts it, is brilliant.